Well I used to live in Wichita, and yeah there used to be a pretty decent scene. Before the F&F came out and all that hype streetracing was not really a big deal to the cops. They would just pretend that nothing was going on, even though everyone in the city knew what went down at West St.
But eventually it got all huge and there would be a ton of ppl there just to hang out and be part of the 'scene'.
15 year old drunk chicks + loud hondas = media coverage and police crackdowns.
They started to get alot tougher on it and had to make examples out of people. Cars were getting impounded left and right, they started bringing out the choppers, undercovers in modded cars with videocameras, etc. Pretty much like they do here.
So basically all it takes is for alot of people to start doing it, or for someone to get hurt in an accident that gets alot of media coverage. Location isnt really a big factor IMO